How to bring community back into the arable crop cycle?
A good starting point is to brainstorm with a group of creatives to share inspiration and ideas… Which is what happened when Ibiza Produce’s Gaby Gambini organised a field visit to Can Purtell on 15 May 2021 as part of a series of farm visits for the Regenerative Agriculture collective. The idea behind the visits is to share between projects and get to know what we are all doing on the island in its’ transition to a more regenerative way of farming.
And so I had the real pleasure of welcoming Jo Youle: The Reset Rebel and podcaster of the Ibiza Gang of Witches, Joanna Hrubry of Theatre of Ancients and creator of the podcast Wells of Tanit, Jessica May: nutrient dense foodie and Regenetarian and playwright and theatre director Ben Dunwell.
We had a chat about traditional hay making and communal harvesting and the harvest celebration and the loss of participation that the transittion from horses and small tractors to heavier machinary.
I strongly feel that community participation is the cornerstone to any succesful project and should be an integral part. So the challenge for me is really how to engage as many as possible into the growing and production cycle as I can!
This chat in a field in the Spring has seeded many ideas, and as community is a theme that I revisit regularly at every step forward. It has been really helpful to know that there are people who genuinly want to and feel a need to engage not just with nature but with the culture and cycles of farming.
A podcast followed the next week with Jo which was a really lovely way to share the project with a wider audience and a gender focused exploration on themes of Access to Land and Agro-ecolgocial Land Stewardship.
Joanna Hubry and I are continuing to talk about how to marry tradtional rural and farming customs with modern farming through land- based performance and I really hope that we will collaborate to find some beautiful ways to express local culture and story telling in the fields in the coming year.
I am hoping that the Soil Guardian page on the website will somehow attract interest and participation with individuals, families and possibly schools. I look forward to inviting new Soil Guardians to come and observe and identify insects, birds and butterflys in the Spring with local biologist Jordi Serrapio. And to dig up soil in the Autumn and learn about what’s beneath our feet and what soil health really looks like.
The production of food is something to celebrate! And we all agreed that a harvvest celebration would be an excellent starting point.. I plan to celebrate next year’s wheat harvest in the field with music laughter singing and locally baked bread… See you then if not before!
I feel that we have lost an important part of our connection to the land and the food we eat through the arrival of large machinary and supermarkets… a resurgence of cultural and community participation with farming and ecological restoration is essential to all our health and wellbeing. As much as I love being in the fields on my own observing, puzzling and learning I welcome others to join me .. whenever you would like to.
